O'BLOCK

O'BLOCK is a free roguelike about one action: naming a price. You buy and sell sneakers by haggling with people who never say what they'll accept. You start on a Chicago block with $300 and a pair of Bred 1s, rent due in seven days. A good run ends with you selling to billionaires.

How a deal works

Each day, people walk up to buy or sell. Every one of them has a hidden reservation price, a mood and a limited patience. You make an offer. They answer with a tell: how far off you are, in their own way. Get close and they take it. Push too hard or too often and they walk.

The street price is a range, not a number. It narrows as your reputation grows.

Fakes tell on themselves. A font, a smell, a slumped toe. One odd detail can be nothing. Two means it's fake, and a sharp buyer will catch you selling it.

Hit someone's number exactly and your name is worth more. That raises what every buyer pays you. Miss, and it drops.

You also sell to the market overnight, hold stock for hype, and buy whole lots and pallets that sell for less per pair the bigger they get.

Why it's a roguelike

Runs. Three modes: climb to a billion, a thirty-day summer scored on your worth, and a daily seed that everyone plays the same day. Ten heat levels, each adding one rule. Six origins, each with an upside and a catch.

Weekly rounds. Every seventh day you pay rent and need to have sold a quota. Miss either and you take a strike. Two strikes and you're evicted.

Angles. 56 modifiers you draft into five ordered slots. Plus parts add, times parts multiply, and some copy or double their neighbours. The order changes the result.

The back room. Clear a week and a shop opens: angles, one-use tips, rerolls that get more expensive, and interest on the cash you held.

Gate bosses. Twelve of them stand between the tiers, and each breaks a rule: backwards tells, a floor that rises when you talk, a number that moves after every offer, total silence.

Progress between runs. Every pair you ever sell goes into the Book. Completing sets unlocks new angles. Winning at a heat unlocks the next one.

Run your own shop

Open a shop and grow it. Start at a folding table, then move up to THE SPOT, a FLAGSHIP and a MAISON with up to 16 lit display cases. Walk-in buyers ask for what's in your cases and pay more for the curation, and you still name every price.

Hire a crew. Staff with traits: an eagle eye who spots fakes, a hustler who brings more buyers, a shopkeeper who doubles your walk-ins. Some hide a bad habit until they've worked a week.

How far it goes

The haggle stays the same while the numbers grow: five pairs on the block, stacks of 500 in the industry, half a million at the top. Five rivals race you to the first billion and compete for the same sellers.

Reach a billion and the game opens a second layer: a list of tycoons to climb, your own sneaker brand to design and drop, a company to take public, and a simulated economy with central banks, bond markets and banks that can fail. Big moves there are still made by naming a price against someone else's.

What it is, and what it isn't

It's a menu-driven trading game. There's no combat and no platforming. If you like reading opponents, building combos and pushing one more run, that's the whole appeal.

Runs are short at the start (a summer run is thirty in-game days) and get long if you go for the billion.

It's free. The optional Supporter Pack ($4.99) is the soundtrack, stems and art. It adds no gameplay.

Details

A 3D voxel city with weather, reflections and holidays (Halloween runs Oct 24 to Nov 1)

192 original songs plus live-synthesized music that follows the deal

15 languages, Steam Cloud saves, leaderboards and 91 achievements

Standard download about 4 GB. A 30 GB lossless-audio version is available under Properties, Betas, "lossless". Same game and save.

Complete Supporter Pack:

Every name in O'BLOCK is a parody. No real person, brand or company is involved with or endorses the game.